Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO)

Cisco (CSCO) makes another big network management software purchase, snapping up Israel's Intucell for $475M in cash and incentives. Intucell's products analyze mobile radio networks in order to optimize performance (e.g. more capacity, fewer dropped calls, better coverage) and automate management tasks. The company also offers small cell solutions, an area of focus for Cisco. The acquisition follows deals to buy management software firms BroadHop and Cariden. Cisco recently said it wants to double software sales in the next 5 years.

Fortinet (FTNT-1.5%) slips after catching a downgrade to Market Perform from JMP, which is worried about rising competition. Fast-growing Palo Alto Networks (PANW-0.5%) has emerged as a rival of sorts for Fortinet: while Fortinet's UTM appliances deliver better performance, Palo Alto's next-gen firewalls offer a more integrated set of tools for analyzing Web content and apps. Cisco, meanwhile, says it's willing to spend aggressively to turn around its security ops.

Intel's (INTC+1.9%) chip foundry business has reeled in Cisco (CSCO-0.1%) as a customer, sources tell Bloomberg ahead of the chip giant's Q4 report. If true, the deal would easily be the largest thus far for Intel's foundry ops, which are trying to leverage the company's manufacturing process edge to gain ground against the likes of TSM, UMC, and Samsung. Cisco's switches and routers depend heavily on custom ASICs produced by foundries. Piper reported of an Intel-Cisco tie-up in September.

Cisco (CSCO) is downgraded to Sell with $18 price target at JPMorgan. Positive investor sentiment on the stock "(has) gotten ahead of itself" given the sluggish enterprise spending environment. "Investors should be using Cisco as a source of funds from current levels." Shares -1.5% premarket.

A month after buying software-defined networking (SDN) controller vendor Contrail (I, II), Juniper (JNPR) is outlining its SDN vision. Like Cisco and VMware's Nicira, Juniper is supporting network virtualization and the centralization of management features on a controller. Just as importantly, it's announcing a novel pay-as-you-go software licensing model that allows licenses to be moved between devices. The move follows Cisco's efforts to use SDN to boost software sales, and is arguably an attempt to counter the commoditizing impact SDN could have on Juniper's switches.

John Chambers recently said he gave Chris Young, the SVP in charge of Cisco's (CSCO) security ops, a "blank check" to hire and acquire as necessary over the next 2-3 years. Moreover, sources tell Reuters Cisco has been actively looking for security acquisitions. Chambers' motivation: while Cisco's security ops post modest growth, upstarts such as PANW, FTNT, and FIRE are growing much faster thanks to their focus on segments such as next-gen firewalls, UTM hardware, and IPS systems, products that offer deeper analysis of content/apps than traditional firewalls.

Cisco (CSCO) is upgraded to Buy by William Blair's Jason Ader who says the company - moving past its mid-life crisis - has emerged "significantly leaner, focused, and more self-aware." Shares +1.2% premarket.

Cisco (CSCO) intros its Videoscape Unity software platform for pay-TV providers, Combining its traditional Videoscape platform with the offerings of recently-acquired NDS, Unity enables a slew of Web-based TV features, including cloud DVR, TV Everywhere support, and the ability to send IP video streams to non-traditional devices. It acts as a hedge against the threat posed by pay-TV platforms that eliminate the need for Cisco's set-top boxes - just yesterday, Intel and Comcast announced one such solution.

More on Intel: As rumors of an Intel TV service run amok, the company is announcing a partnership with Comcast to enable the viewing of live Xfinity TV content on Intel-based devices without a set-top box (possibly a negative for CSCO, ARRS, BRCM and STM), but with the help of an Intel Puma cable modem/gateway. Intel is also mandating ultrabooks based on its next-gen Haswell CPUs sport touchscreens and support its wireless display tech. That could be a positive for touchscreen controller vendors such as ATML, CY, and SYNA.

AT&T (T) introduces the U-verse Screen Pack, a $5/month movie streaming service for its TV subs. Some are calling the service a Netflix (NFLX) killer, but as AllThingsD's Peter Kafka points out, Screen Pack's relatively small content library makes it more on par with Comcast's Streampix, which hasn't exactly eaten Netflix's lunch. AT&T is also announcing new U-verse media-sharing apps, and a home security/automation service called Digital Life; the latter relies on a control panel developed by Cisco (CSCO).

Cisco (CSCO) +1.3% after catching an upgrade to Outperform from RBC. The firm cites better visibility and gross margin stabilization, among other things. "Cisco's core markets are no longer under attack from Huawei, HP and Juniper and Cisco's market shares have rebounded and stabilized. Cisco has also improved its sales execution and refocused its engineering talent.." IDC's data indicates Cisco, which trades at less than 8x FY13E EPS, lost a bit of Ethernet switching share in Q3.

Cisco (CSCO) is open to making additional wireless-focused acquisitions to "fill gaps" in its portfolio, says marketing exec Murali Nemani, but it has no interest in making a larger acquisition to compete head-on with the likes of Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent in the traditional base station market. Nemani adds Cisco views the market as "a slow-growing, highly commoditized space." Instead, Cisco wants to focus on the budding small cell market, via integrated solutions that feature its Wi-Fi hardware, management software, and ASR 5000 routers.

Smartphones now make up 40% of Wi-Fi hotspot sessions, and tablets another 17%, according to trade group WBA. All that activity offloads traffic from strained mobile networks, and is one reason Light Reading sees carrier Wi-Fi adoption continuing to ramp in 2013. It also sees bigger deployments, such as Cisco's recent Indonesian deal, and deployment of the high-speed 802.11ac standard thanks to chips from Broadcom, Marvell, and others. Ruckus Wireless (RKUS), up sharply since its Nov. IPO, is close to a pure-play on carrier Wi-Fi equipment.

John Chambers is planning to sell 2.8M Cisco (CSCO) shares by Sep. 2014, according to to an 8-K filing. Chambers, who has said he might retire in 2-4 years, currently owns 8.7M Cisco shares, after counting the 5.7M he has via unexercised stock options.

Arris (ARRS) finished AH trading up 16.9%, and Google (GOOG) down 0.4%, following the Motorola Home deal. In a call discussing the deal, Arris claimed Google has agreed to cap Arris' liability in TiVo's patent suit against Motorola to "a very small number." Many think the total liability could be enormous (I, II). Long-term, Arris/Motorola should be a formidable rival to Cisco's (CSCO) Scientific Atlanta, but there's some potential for near-term share loss as integration issues are dealt with and customers try to re-diversify their sources.

Cisco Systems Inc is engaged in designing, manufacturing and selling of Internet Protocol (IP) based networking products and services related to the communications and information technology (IT) industry.